Resonance Karamea 2016 - Coordinator Roles

Hi Everone :)
The purpose of this forum post is to kick start the process of identifying and supporting community members to take on key roles in the production of Resonance Karamea 2016. As I have stated previously I see this as a process taking two years with this year about developing clear processes, developing skill sets and introducing community members to those already networked with the event.

The key point I wish to make is that these roles are coordinator roles for key aspects of the event, as such the people who take on these roles are not expected to "do everything themselves". Rather these roles are about being creative, developing plans and budgets, identifying required resources including personal (and potentially sourcing them), coordinating volunteers and the clean up after the event.

My role in all this will be providing support and passing on my 7 years experience in producing events within the Karamea region. I am looking forward to being creative and having fun with those who choice to take on these roles.

The following is a list of the key roles. While I expect some roles will be taken up by an individual, please feel free to share roles with others or take up more than one role if the mood takes you! Also these roles are categorised along lines that held historical meaning and may benefit from being redefined if that better suits future needs.

To make sense of how all of these interact with each other and other aspects of the festival (Marketing, Communication, Budget, Scheduling, etc.) I have created a mindmap (please see attached). Each coordinator will be provided with a hardcopy of this clearly indicating their individual area and aspects of the festival that area interacts with.

Alongside this all coordinators will receive tools for helping with organisation and standardising communication, copies of past budgets (with as much detail about their particular area as possible) and any other information I can find that will help provide a sense of history.

Also Tim has expressed an interest in helping out with Crew food and Mary Bell with the Decoration Crew. I also caught up with Bernie Onthecoast who has confirmed he is locked in for next years event...

I though I might share the following after a discussion I had this weekend. It was written as part of the process of developing policies and procedures for another project I am a part of. I hope it offers some insight into where my heart is at:

"On Thursday evening I recieved a phone call from Surendra an elder from the Tui Community in Golden Bay. I heard Surendra talk at an Intentional Communites Conference earlier this year and felt what he talked about was pertinent to our project.Below is a summary of our discussions:

Tui Community have two types of meetings: A community meeting several times a month where everyday matters are discussed and a Trust meeting once a month which deals with the overview of running a community. From Surendra's 20 odd years of experience in the community these meetings are pretty boring and he has been developing an alternative means which has been growing in popularity in the community over the last couple of years.

When there is enough trust within the group the opportunity arises for embracing the values of self relience and self responsibility. Surendra asked himself "where do we find our freedom within a community?" and realised it was when an individual has ( a. ) authority in what they do and ( b. ) fun in the creative process of doing. As such he developed the following guidelines which involves asking three questions:

Is this thing an uplifting experience for me?

Is this something I need to inform others about?

Is this of benefit to all?

The final question needs elaborating - by all Surendra means, those currently in the community, future members of the community and the environment. I got a feeling that in a sense he was also referring to honouring the efforts of those past...

Another aspect of this was a discussion around the use of rules which he described as "lacking life" and tended to be "things we don't want to see in others". I also would like to add to this that rules tend to be something we refer to when things don't go right as a means of identifying who was in the wrong. As such Surendra noted rules are fear based, authoritive and something most people don't want to engage with. They tend to become dead documents, forgotten, and lacking in creativity. The use of value based guidelines promotes the development of a community consciousness (the ability to determine whether an action is beneficial to us as an individual and a group), is accessable to everyone (including children) and develops the ability of people to feel as well as think their way through experiences.

To end the conversation he told a story about a group of school boys undertaking the challenge of washing pots after a large community gathering. An onlooker watched and quickly realised collectively they had very little experience at this kind of task and in resisting the urge to provide guidance noted "the way they did it was the way they did it... it was a gift to them not to disturb that creative process".

As humans our biggest challenge is not to allow our fear of lack of control or the influence of past trauma to impact on our innate abilities to be creative.

Thank you Surendra."

I see my role in passing the festival over to the community as a process of connecting those involved to historical aspects and putting in place a system that ensures effective communication between the various components of the event. Some of the more complex aspects of the event I imagine I will be working closely with those involved, with others I hope they will feel free to use me as a sounding board... this year is about building capability and capacity by doing :)

Yes, keen on festival shinanighis zone once more and kidzone is a zone of focus for me, great also if Brendan is in again, always fun building and creating this, just like building a fort with blankets in your parents lounge only much more resources and ideas( and no parents telling you to tidy up.....). Well have to explore the coordnator role, I have always managed random input on the lead up and then a solid few days off on the lead in to festy weekend. Aspects such as artist liason ( not too much of a major with the kidzone historically but would be great to see more........ magicians, puppeteers and such....) may be tricky due to the unpredictable nature of work and the chance that I can dissapear for a week or two at a time.

Ideally once the ball is rolling ( pretty much getting on the go now) keen to follow up on making a forum on this site dedicated to the kidzone for all those keen to input into it .

Also interested in erosion protection and nutting out the proposal for electronic zone out on the newly built up land with repsect to potential tidal/wave influence and other points of consideration with regards to how the sea is affecting the site.

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